Graham Greene: Our Man In Havana

[Sybarite]

Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene

Another novel (like The Great Gatsby earlier this summer) that I managed to come to without having read any other work by the author or having seen the film version.

James Wormold is a single parent running a vacuum cleaner shop in Havana, Cuba, in the last days of the Batista regime. With trade gradually failing, he desperately needs money to grant his 17-year-old daughter Milly's wishes and ensure that she has a future beyond the island.

Approached by a pushy Englishman called Hawthorne, Wormold finds himself recruited by the British secret service – "our man in Havana" – with funds for himself and promises of more for any agents that he himself recruits.

But Wormold has no contacts and no knowledge or interest of what is happening in the country. Finally called upon to start justifying his new income, he starts concocting reports for London.

And that's where the trouble really starts.

Graham Greene himself joined the Secret Intelligence Service (which became MI6) in 1941, and the novel is largely a satire on intelligence services in general and British intelligence in particular.

There's an element of tragedy in the farce – that of the innocent dying as Wormold's creative reports take on a life of their own – but there's plenty of humour that leaves one smiling. And ultimately the biggest laugh is the denouement – how the British intelligence services decide to deal with the knowledge that they've been conned.

It's funny and wry, and it's interesting that, with the benefit of internal experience, Greene seems to view the intelligence services as part of the problem rather than the solution. Very entertaining and with a nice bite to it.

• The idea of invented reports from a spy turned up again in John le Carré's 1996 novel The Tailor of Panama, where Harry Pendel wants to keep the money flowing from British intelligence.

[fausto]

I read the book ages ago, and it really was a fun read. I do wonder though if Greene really viewed the services as part of the problem or if the problem was the way they were run after WWII. That's what quite a few ex-"spies" had issues with, but I've read the book too long ago to place Greene in one of the two options.

[Stewart]

Originally Posted by Sybarite

Another novel that I managed to come to without having read any other work by the author...

Yes, Greene is someone who I've been wanting to read for ages but have never even bought a book by. Part of me has always been holding off in the hope that we might get a relaunch of his work in some attractive editions, but Vintage seem intent on uglyfying their range as much as possible at the moment given them tacky red spines and only mentioning the authors' surnames on the cover (i.e. Vintage Greene). But, since Vintage/Random House owns the rights, I don't envisage my preferred option of Penguin winning them from the Greene estate and putting them out as Modern Classics.

But your description of this book reminds me that I have at least read something by Greene. In school, there was an English exam practice paper in which a few pages of Our Man In Havana was used. A passage about a man on a pier with a gun.

[Sybarite]

Originally Posted by fausto

I read the book ages ago, and it really was a fun read. I do wonder though if Greene really viewed the services as part of the problem or if the problem was the way they were run after WWII. That's what quite a few ex-"spies" had issues with, but I've read the book too long ago to place Greene in one of the two options.

I suspect it could be a bit of both. Much of the mayhem in the book is caused because of how other intelligence services (not the British ones) react to what they discover of Wormold and his ring of supposed agents.

They all feed off each other; it's quite incestuous.

Originally Posted by Stewart

Yes, Greene is someone who I've been wanting to read for ages but have never even bought a book by. Part of me has always been holding off in the hope that we might get a relaunch of his work in some attractive editions, but Vintage seem intent on uglyfying their range as much as possible at the moment given them tacky red spines and only mentioning the authors' surnames on the cover (i.e. Vintage Greene). But, since Vintage/Random House owns the rights, I don't envisage my preferred option of Penguin winning them from the Greene estate and putting them out as Modern Classics...

There seems to be a trend toward naff covers and surnames – similarly, the Agatha Christie Miss Marple books now have "Marple" on the cover, although that was partly for TV tie-in reasons.

Greene was just one of many authors that I keep realising I haven't read yet – and should make the effort. I'd certainly read more.

It's deceptively light. Looking back now (I finished it late Saturday) I find myself realising just how much of a vicious circle the whole thing is.

[Jayaprakash]

>>in the hope that we might get a relaunch of his work in some attractive editions

Try second-hand. I have most of his stuff in the 80s Penguin editions with cover illustrations by Paul Hogarth. Like Ionicus and Wodehouse, I'm not certain why anyone fools around getting new cover art done.

[Max Cairnduff]

If I remember correctly, like many Greene's the last sentence of the novel (literally the last sentence) changes it from comedy to tragedy. Greene was rather fond of endings that come as punches to the stomach.

Good review in the opening post though, it is a fun novel and I agree that it's a very fun read.